Lyon 31st May 2013

My last full day in Europe was spent on a day trip from Lyon to Chalon sur Saone, the city where Opa was imprisoned and escaped in 1942, leaving his mother behind.

I went with little knowledge of what happened in that city beyond Opa's recollection, admittedly doubtful in this area (he had thought he was either in Pithiviers or Drancy). The Internet offered little information beyond that there was some sort of prison center here in 1942. I went to see if anyone in the city knew any more.

First I went to the local office of tourism. I have learned that these places throughout France are often good places to find English speakers. The women there did not know anything about any prison camps, but suggested that I should speak to someone at a war memorial museum not far away. No one there had heard of any prison site either. Theirs was a memorial to the fallen French soldiers of the war, not victims of the Holocaust, an event that barely touched their rural city.

So I did not find much success here. I even spent time wandering near the train station (thinking that likely the prison would have been near the area most of the arrests were being made, on the trains) looking for a building that matched the description given by Opa. But he admitted in his journal that his impression of the place was influenced by his small size (he thought it was an enormous building with an 8 - 10 foot wall), and it is doubtful that the building still stands today in any event, so I found nothing.

But, like with all of my travels, my time in Chalon sur Saone will help me better write the parts of the story that take place here with better accuracy, so the day was not a wash.

It is both strange and exciting to think that it is nearly time to go home. I am very happy and proud of my accomplishments on this trip.

Tomorrow will be spent mostly on trains to Paris and then Amsterdam where I will stay overnight in the airport and I fly home around 1 PM local time on the 2nd to New York City. It is an eight hour flight, but because of the time difference I will land around 3 PM Eastern, and then I have one more flight to Detroit and I fly from there to Burlington. I am not looking forward to that jet lag!

Until tomorrow!

Toulouse to Lyon 30th May 2013

Today's time traveling was well spent in discussion - albeit in a convoluted mixture of my own broken French and her broken English - with a very sweet woman regarding Opa, his mother, my family, and her family. It made the time pass quickly and I was moved, once more, by how supportive of my project everyone I meet has been.

And, geographically speaking, I was not prepared at all for what I saw on this train ride. I am ashamed to admit, "geographer" that I am, that I had little sense of where exactly Toulouse was relative to Lyon, and additionally I had no preexisting notion of what southeastern France is like; I can tell you now, it is beautiful.

Toulouse is farther south, and the Mediterranean farther north, than I thought. Imagine my surprise to look out the window at a sandy beach lapped by the brightest-blue water I had ever seen. Noting my fascination, my riding companion said, simply, "C'est la mer. La mer Méditeranée." I never expected it. The Mediterranean snuck up on me. Some geographer! Looking at the map now, of course we would skirt the coast. What an exciting surprise! If only I could have got out!

And then it was gone. And at Nîmes, so too was my intrepid amateur tour guide. But the land was no less impressive.

From Nîmes we sped almost directly north through some of the most rugged terrain I have ever seen. Mountains seemingly composed of nothing but fist-sized rubble shot up into the sky, clad in hardy evergreens, the occasional vineyard (which look eerily like the war graveyards, neat rows as far as the eye can see) and a scrubby little undergrowth resplendent with yellow and pink flowers that made their lives in such a seemingly sparse area. It was beautiful in its alienness and I really wish I could spend time there: there were miles of shoulder-width walking paths through the underbrush begging to be explored. Perhaps someday!

It's funny what time does to language. Trying to talk to the woman, I found myself very near to answering her French in German (I took German this semester for the first time) despite the fact I took two semesters of French in high school. I am much more comfortable in German than in French. I ended up showing her the pictures I have of Opa, his family, etc., and she understood everything I was saying much better than when I had been trying in elementary French! She told me I have Opa's eyes. I wanted to hug her for that.

There are hourly trains from here to Chalons sur Saone, so I will spend tomorrow there. I am not sure what I will find, if anything, but the best way to see is to go! Then my real last day in Europe will be over, already! I travel the next day to Paris where I take a connecting train to Amsterdam and will stay in the airport there for roughly 13 hours or so before heading home. If I smell when I land, Mom and Dad, I'm sorry! Just sit me next to Trey on the ride back!

Until tomorrow, readers!

P.S. Everyone who has been enjoying my blog over the course of this month, and who is disappointed now that it is coming to an end, should take a moment and check out my good friend Ethan's nascent blog, Summer Adventures of a Northwoods Wildlife Intern, where he details the incredibly interesting day to day life of a wildlife refuge in Wisconsin. His posts are funny, exciting, and I am jealous of the fact that he gets to have such a cool job for the summer! Give it a read and follow him as loyally as you have been following this blog (I'm thankful for that, by the way!)

Au revoir!

Toulouse 29th May 2013

Finally my allergies have subsided! Apart from the occasional debilitating sneeze it seems yesterday's rain and today's cloudiness have defeated southern France's considerable pollen level, meaning today was a great day to explore Toulouse.

I really like this city, though I have trouble comparing it to anywhere else I have been. It is no Paris, where thousands are on the street at any time. Neither is it Vienna, with its Imperial legacy. And it is unlike Amsterdam, too, that city is far too maritime in character. And Toulouse is sprawling and doesn't climb upward like any American city.

But the houses are colorful, the streets are narrow and lively, and I did not find a visibly impoverished area here like I did in the other cities I have visited on this trip (though I am sure it must exist somewhere).

It just seems like a city comfortable with its mixed French, North African, and even Spanish influences. None of the other cities seemed this cosmopolitan, which seems strange considering Toulouse is smaller than the others. This seems also to run counter to the American trend where smaller communities seem more insular.

That said, though, I did not wander upon any Jewish heritage in Toulouse like I did everywhere else. It is a big place and I cannot say that a Jewish quarter does not exist, but the other cities were bigger and I found theirs. Perhaps Toulouse is not so cosmopolitan, or has not been historically, at least, as it seems.

Tonight I pack again and tomorrow is spent on a train to Lyon. I am excited to go to Chalons sur Saone on the day after but I am having a very hard time finding any information on the camp there. I will have to "wing it" (like I have on most of this trip, honestly).

I also am very excited now to go home. This trip has been immensely rewarding but I am exhausted and long to be in Vermont. But, not much longer!

Until tomorrow!

Toulouse 28th May 2013

It appears that I may be a rain maker, as the skies above Toulouse clouded overnight and it has been pouring all day, making for poor sightseeing. On the bright side, though my allergies are still an issue, the rain has helped immensely. I am less congested and can form coherent thoughts today.

Today was, due to the weather, committed to doing laundry at, I must say, the sketchiest laundromat I have ever seen. The walls and tables were covered with graffiti and the weird, synthetic-rubbery couch was not one I would I ever consider sitting on... But I am currently sockless, so it had to happen. In any case it was cheaper than its Parisian counterpart.


Sidenote: a man just walked in with no laundry, looked me in the eyes, and walked out...

I have undergone an exciting string of experiences lately, experiences that cause me to believe I am very close to ready to start actually writing Heinz. I have caught myself several times writing scenes in my head. Whether lying down to sleep, in the shower, or cooking, my mind wanders to the story I have to tell and the manner in which I want to tell it. If that is not a sign that I am almost ready I do not know what is.

The majority of the writing of Heinz will be undertaken this fall at school when I have allotted three credit hours per week to the project. But I suspect that I will be drawn to begin my work this summer in Vermont while I have free time and this trip is fresh on my mind.

I am considering spending my last night in Europe, 1st June, in the Amsterdam airport rather than at the hostel I have booked. I arrive at almost 11 PM anyway and I don't much care to try and find my hostel that late at night. I will consider it a bit more and then decide.

Tomorrow I will explore here no matter the weather!

Toulouse 27th May 2013

I fell asleep very early last night and woke up at 07:00 this morning. I have suffered from particularly bad allergies today: so bad, in fact, that my Chinese roommate (who speaks almost no English) was so concerned he asked me if I was OK as I cooked dinner, apparently looking like I was crying over the poor sausages I was cutting.

Despite my allergies I took a two hour train ride to Pau, a city in the Pyrenees Opa visited for some time in 1942 before making his way to Switzerland. I had heard the Pyrenees are beautiful, so I took a south-facing window seat.

"Beautiful" is an understatement. The Pyrenees drive up into the sky seemingly out of nowhere. On the northern side of the train there are rolling plains for miles; on the southern, the snow-capped white peaks of the range intermingle with the clouds.

Pau itself is located in the foothills of these mountains. It sits atop a north-facing ridge that makes for a steep climb (there is a ski-lift-like tram offered to those who cannot make it up walking) and an amazing view. I would say it is the most beautiful place I have ever seen if my trained had not passed through Loundes just before...

Loundes is nestled between three tall green spires in a valley carved by a swiftly-flowing blue-green river. I did not stop, but even from the train it left an impression. The ruins of a castle sat atop a hill on the bank of the river flying the tri-colored flag of France. Not far down river the spire of a cathedral climbed upward triumphantly. The place is gorgeous.

My frustration at my allergies keeps this entry short. Tomorrow, depending on my allergies, I plan to explore Toulouse some. I also need to do laundry, I am down to one clean sock (not sure how that happened).

Until tomorrow!

Paris to Toulouse 26th May 2013

As I course over the French countryside on a high speed InterCity train it has occurred to me that the most beautiful days seem to be travel days when I cannot enjoy the sun and its warmth because I am stuck in a metal tube hurtling along at 165 km/h. C'est la vie, I suppose. It is still snowing in Vermont, though. Rebecca posted a picture this morning that I feel warrants attention here:

So I will take a sunny day on the train in France.

Leaving Paris was a strange experience. My time there was certainly the most rewarding yet. In numerous places I have seen the Hebrew supplication Zachor, "remember." This concept, as I have immersed myself in my research, has taken on a new and personal meaning.

I think that one of the most intriguing and worrisome truths regarding Holocaust studies is that while the Holocaust as an event is one of the most researched topics in human history it seems that remembrance, true zachor, is more and more difficult to ensure. This is a nascent idea for me and I welcome comment and apologize in advance if it is controversial.

In my own American education I was taught a good but overwhelmingly broad history of the Holocaust. I worry that this teaching style might be damaging. "Six million Jews were killed," we are told, "simply because they were Jewish." But when we view the issue through such a wide lens we lose sight of the fact that each of those six million was a person, a human being with a life story. Perhaps they were Heinz Najman, a 13 year old boy, never devoutly Jewish but hunted for it anyway. Perhaps they were Bernard Najman, only 2 years old, never given the chance to decide what Judaism meant to him before he was sentenced to the gas chamber for it. I am reluctant to view the Holocaust as anything that happened "simply because," because that logic seems almost to lend itself to the logic of Nazism itself.

I rather think that the Holocaust should be told personally. This is what I will try to do with Heinz. Opa and his family were far more than simple Jewish victims of Nazi hatred; they were human beings with wants and needs and they ought to be treated as such in any telling of their tale. To reduce them to the identity Hitler sought to impose on them would be a dramatic and hurtful disservice.

I think that an education in this vein can also stir interest that other pedagogic styles cannot. Anne Frank's story was remarkably touching and relatable because of its intimately personal nature. Anne was a living person with emotion and depth, no matter how adamantly Nazi propaganda claimed otherwise. Heinz Najman, too, was a human being, resisting his oppressors from the first day that they threatened him and his family, never passive as the word "victim" implies. And I am remarkably and unstatably proud to descend from such a person.

This is not to say that such personal narratives do not exist. Indeed great work has been done and continues to be undertaken to document and share the lives of those people killed during the Shoah. But I worry that many general Holocaust education methods gloss over the humanity of those killed by lumping them together in the decidedly inhuman abstraction "Jewish victims."

What does this mean? I think that educators should take caution in all cases of genocide because it is incredibly easy in teaching such subjects to slip into faceless and yeastless statistics and generalities. I ask that, instead, educators should highlight the humanity of those killed, as this humanity is the very thing those perpetrating genocide try to deny. We have not yet learned, despite all the time and money dedicated to studying the Holocaust, how to prevent genocide. Several are ongoing today.

Perhaps it is time for a new way to teach this subject.

Paris 25th May 2013

My last day in Paris was one of rather high ambitions: today I would get to the tourist sites I had been neglecting in favor of research.

The plan was only mildly successful, mostly because I made a rookie's travel mistake: never leave everything of one type for one day. If your one day gets rained out, you will miss seeing the Eiffel Tower.

Honestly, I was in Paris and never saw the Eiffel Tower except from afar. Worst tourist ever.

But I console myself in knowing I was here first as a researcher and my efforts on that front have been broadly successful.

I made my way late this morning (a beautiful morning, mind you) to the fountain of St. Michael near Notre Dame where a free three-hour walking tour began at 1:00. Generally I, being the seasoned veteran of nearly a month in Europe now, scoff at such blatantly tourist-y attractions as this tour, but I don't regret starting this walk: the guide was young, funny, knowledgeable and friendly. I learned some very neat curiosities of Parisian and French history.

Unfortunately the weather did not hold. By the time we reached the Louvre a torrential downpour soaked me. I was cold. I told Europe that it had won this day, left the tour, and headed back to my hostel. I have spent today trying to be as productive as I can be here.

Tomorrow my train for Toulouse leaves at 09:42, so I will have to get up fairly early to take the subway to the Gare d'Austerlitz. Tonight I will pack and sleep early!

Another travel day tomorrow! I will update you all from Toulouse where I hope it is a bit more dry (though at least it isn't snowing like it is today in Vermont).

Au revoir, Paris!

Paris 24th May 2013

I am, once again, astounded and excited by the fragments of information I find everywhere I go. Nine days ago in Brussels I learned the names of all four of Opa's grandparents. Two days ago I used those names to learn the names and addresses of an aunt, uncle, and four cousins of Opa's that none in my family knew lived. Today in Orleans I used those names and addresses to find pictures of that aunt and those cousins. I am, once again, blown away.

By the nature of my project I go to most places with little idea of what to expect. I knew that Orleans was home to CERCIL,essentially a center for Holocaust studies focused on the Loiret region of France and its three large camps (among them Pithiviers), but I expected it to be little more than a museum of sorts (there are many, an example is the Jewish History Museum in Amsterdam I wrote about previously), which are nice but do not generally do much to forward my own project. There were, after all, many people involved in the Shoah and it is impossible in most broad interest museums to dwell or focus on the countless individual stories inherent in the Holocaust. In fact, I almost did not go to Orleans today: another day in Paris was tempting and I was not feeling well this morning anyway, but I decided to go and see what I could find.

Orleans is a pretty city, bigger than Ypres but much smaller than Paris, which was nice after a few days in the city. I do not think I will ever be a "city person." I feel overwhelmed by the massive tide of humanity in Paris.

The receptionist at CERCIL was a very sweet woman, embarrassed by her lack of command of English (she was better than she gave herself credit for), but helpful nonetheless. She let me into the museum for free because, she said, everything was written in French and she apparently doubted that I would get my money's worth from the exhibits. She was wrong.

For the most part it was a museum. It featured a barrack like those found at Pithiviers and then summarized, much like other museums, the lead up to the war and the genocide.

But CERCIL had a room with three sectioned and illuminated walls. In each small section sat the name of a child arrested in France, most during the Vel d'Hiv, and most eventually killed. In roughly 1/5th of these a picture accompanied the name. The many names with blank spaces were ominous, evidence of the mountains of work still due to these children whose stories are not fully understood, and discouraged me from hoping, but I worked my way slowly around, looking at the faces of innocents whose lives were torn apart by a hatred they could not possibly have deserved.

I reached Rosa Brykman's place first. No picture of the 16 year old girl with whom my great-grandmother was killed was available. This made me sad. Opa said she was pretty, and I had hoped to see her.

But the "N"s were different. My breath caught as my eyes settled first on Lucien Najman, Opa's younger cousin, who looked incredibly similar to Opa and to my father. Above and below Lucien were pictures of his brothers and sisters. They were a beautiful family. The oldest, Helene, was only 16.


Additionally there was an interactive database that let me search for each of them, game some details of their lives, and cycled between an enlarged picture of them and a family photo of the children with their mother, Marjem. I could not help but be moved by this photo. Their happy smiles in the face of such horror are incredible. They were together.

I thanked the receptionist profusely and assured her I had found more than I could have hoped for.

On the train ride back I met an interesting and trilingual mechanical engineer from near Orleans who fell for a Brazilian girl at university and moved to Brazil to be with her. We discussed life, my project, and politics (both American and French) all the way. It was very nice to meet a local for once (most of my friends have been fellow hostelers). He even told me a bit about Chalons sur Saone!

Unfortunately I came back too late to try to attend services at the synagogue tonight. I was disappointed, but I am still so happy with today. I cannot get over Lucien. It is remarkable.

Until tomorrow!

Paris 23rd May 2013

I am still on a genealogy high from yesterday. I was inspired by my success in the archives to spend last night updating and expanding my ever-growing family tree. In so doing I found several family members I hadn't been notifying of these posts and should have been. So, if you are new here, I hope you enjoy reading about the project, and welcome to the club!

I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep last night, mostly as a result of my excitement of the day's success, but I suspect in part also because I had more coffee than I should have with Ashley and Jordan. So I have spent most of today tired and will likely turn in early tonight, but I did use the time thinking of potential ways to present Heinz when I get back to Aberdeen, so I was at least somewhat productive.

Today was spent traveling to Drancy, the transit camp north of Paris where numerous members of my family - indeed, tens of thousands of Jews from France - were held before being deported to their deaths at concentration camps across Europe. The building that housed the internees itself was demolished years ago. In its place stands a twisted and haunting statue in memory of the Hell on Earth that was built here, and train tracks leading ominously to a freight car like those used in the deportations. It was an odd experience being there. The plaques say n'oubliez pas - "do not forget," but life goes on at Drancy and I am the only one at the memorial. It is situated in (yet another) poor residential neighborhood. Few even notice the memorial they walk past every day. I suppose noticing and remembering are the jobs of my project.

Tomorrow I will take a train to Orleans to visit the memorial for child victims of the Vel d'hiv, the mass roundup of Jews in France in which many in my family were arrested. If my French is up to snuff this is also the Pithiviers memorial. I will try to be back in time to attend services at the synagogue near Rue des Francs Bourgeois.

Until tomorrow!

Paris 22nd May 2013

Honestly, the immensity of today can not be overstated. If I were to add all of the information I have found prior to today (roughly two to two and a half years of work online) it would still pale in comparison to 22nd May, 2013 in Paris. I have found the missing piece. I understand now. My God. Honestly. I have never felt like I do right now.

Opa's memoirs in English were written far after the fact and, despite some few "holes" of informations, are remarkably detailed. I am more and more impressed with his ability to remember specific addresses in each city as well as the names of neighbors, etc. My main work has been derived from these English memoirs, but there is also a fragment of what appears to be a contemporary account of the incident written by Opa shortly after he arrived in Switzerland. This short piece is written in German.

For the most part these stories corroborate, but on one key issue they diverged: his English report led me to assume he had been interned at Drancy, a camp just north of Paris, based on the fact that his mother was eventually deported from there to Auschwitz. But the German account states that he was actually Pithiviers, another camps, and implies that he was separated from his mother there. To further confuse matters, records for him do not exist at either Pithiviers or Drancy, though they do at both for his mother (she was sent from Pithiviers to Drancy and then to Auschwitz). This led me to question my preexisting notion: perhaps Opa was never at either camp, and they were separated somewhere else.

His mother's information cards were regrettably vague. No hints as to her location prior to Pithiviers were offered. But Opa's memoirs, once again incredibly detailed, mentioned the names of various extended family members with whom he and his mother were traveling when they were arrested. Among this number was one Rosa Brykman, his cousin, the 16 year old daughter of his mother's older sister. In his English memoir Opa noted that when he left his mother he also left Rosa. It occurred to me that Rosa very likely followed the same trail as Opa's mother and may shed light on the mystery location where they were all imprisoned together.

And that was it. Rosa was the key. She was kept with Opa's mother until their similar murders at Auschwitz. But where Chana Najman's cards were bereft of information regarding their detention prior to Pithiviers, Rosa Brykman's cards had a single line: "Prison de Chalons sur Saone."

And there it was. Chalons sur Saone is a city south east of Paris very near the demarcation line that separated the German-occupied portion of France from Vichy ("Free") France, and it was here that Opa, his mother, Rosa Brykman, and three distant relations (one of whome, Paulette Weinbush, he escaped with) were all imprisoned together. This is my missing piece. It was not a concentration camp, not even a transit camp like Drancy, but more of a haphazard detention center erected as a staging point. It was this piecemeal nature of the prison at Chalons sur Saone that allowed the French Gendarme the opportunity to help Opa and Paulette escape. Chalons sur Saone is the last place Opa saw his mother.

Needless to say, I am going to Chalons sur Saone. It is an hour's ride from Lyon, so I will go on 31st May.

Almost as an after thought (relatively speaking) I found information on twelve (!!!) relatives: Pesacc Najman, my Opa's uncle, his wife and their four children, and Cyrla Brykman nee Szmckier, Opa's mother's older sister, her husband and their four children, including the key Rosa. This trove of information itself is priceless. I owe an inordinate deal to the archives of the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris.

This evening I met Ashley and her boyfriend Jordan for coffee at an excellent cafe near Notre Dame. It was very nice to see her and meet Jordan for the first time. I hope to see her again stateside sometime soon!

Tomorrow I intend to visit Drancy.

Honestly I cannot begin to express the excitement that today has kindled in me. I am absolutely elated. There is nothing else to say.

I have no more words.

Paris 21st May 2013

Today was a very productive day! My friend Ashley was right in telling me that walking around Paris like I did in Vienna or Brussels simply isn't practical. The City of Light is huge and my hostel is fairly far from the city center. Fortunately the metro system is relatively cheap and, compared to Brussels', very comprehensive.

My first stop this morning was the Gare du Nord, the train station at which I arrived yesterday, to attempt to make reservations for each of my remaining trains and fix the one I made a mistake on in Belgium. The line to talk to someone about the tickets was long but the worker was friendly, a nice change from the opposite (short line, angry people) in Belgium.

Unfortunately I couldn't simply change my Toulouse reservation to Lyon. Why? Because it was made in Belgium. Gosh. But it was only 9€, so I made a correct reservation from Lyon and my trip on the 1st of June is now assured: I will make it back to the USA!

More unfortunately, all the trains to Pau in the time frame I need are fully booked. I will not be able to get there as planned. But I didn't give up: I've learned on this trip that there are usually alternative ways to do anything you'd like to do, even when it looks improbable. I made a reservation to Toulouse two days earlier than I previously planned to arrive there and extended my hostel reservation there. Toulouse is fairly close to Pau anyway, and trains from there to the mountain city do not require reservations. I will visit Pau as a day trip from Toulouse. It all works out. Aside for that my trains are reserved as planned and I am good to go! Exciting. I did not even have to pay a cancellation fee in Pau because I did it early enough, and I actually ended up saving about 30€ because the hostel in Toulouse is cheaper than the hotel in Pau would have been!

Next I headed south nearly to the Seine and visited the Holocaust memorial. I didn't expect much more than a museum there but was pleasantly surprised. On their wall of names I found Chana Najman, my great grandmother, which was very moving. But, in addition, the top floor of the memorial is an easily accessible archive with bilingual archivists!

This place housed microfiche copies of the Paris police records (no info relevant to my project) as well as the records of both the Pithiviers and Drancy camps. The very helpful archivist aided me in searching for Chana (we found some excellent info... She was interned first at Pithiviers from 10-22 August, 1942 and then sent to Drancy where she was held for only four days until 26 August when she was deported to Auschwitz... More evidence for the timeline of events) and for Opa, who interestingly seems to have no existing record at either place. I am puzzled by this because his memoirs place him with her. But there are numerous possibilities. Tomorrow I will go back with information regarding his extended family, cousins with whom he lived in Paris, as their information may give further light to information on him.

After that I ate lunch at a cool little deli and walked to 45 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, where Opa and Chana lived with those cousins in Paris for some time. It was not far from the memorial and on the way I passed a beautiful synagogue. Perhaps Opa prayed there, though I have my doubts. In any case, maybe I will be able to attend services here on Friday.

The apartment building on Rue des Francs Bourgeois made a strong impression on Opa. Judging by his description and the state of the street today I should guess that his cousins were well off. They owned a clothing store on the street level and lived above it. The street still houses a clothing store but the woman inside told me it is only three years old and was previously a library. Either way this is certainly the most luxurious neighborhood Opa lived in: the entire street is lined with elegant and beautiful old hotels, most built before 1600.

I walked west, on Dr. Fouberg's suggestion, to the Tuileries Garden and the Louvre, both beautiful. I sat in the garden and watched people and birds and then headed back on the subway to my hostel. I cooked dinner and did laundry tonight, too.

My tentative schedule is to visit the archive again tomorrow along with more sight seeing and then meet Ashley and her boyfriend tomorrow evening at a cafe. Thursday and Friday I plan to take trips to the Drancy and Pithiviers memorials respectively.

Sidenote: I have officially filled half of my notebook. Forty pages!

Until tomorrow!

Brussels to Paris 20th May 2013

Disaster has struck, readers! In the course of today's travels I lost not just one but both of my fancy and beloved Sharpie fine-point felt-tipped pens. This is a tragedy. I am writing this entry with a standard issue ballpoint Bic pen bummed off the reception desk... Comparatively it is like writing with hammer and chisel. A moment of silence for my trusty but lost companions, who wrote me through more than half of this trip. You will be missed!

... I promise I am not going crazy, it has simply been another very long day. I do not much care for what I have started calling "travel days," the days when my just-developed sense of normalcy in a city is thrown to the wind and turned upside down in the move to a new one. But, joking aside, such abrupt changes in scenery and situation cannot begin to compare with those Opa and his family had to make between 1938 and 1945. Even on the most elementary level, mine are voluntary moves where theirs were forced. I cannot begin to imagine...

As I wrote previously I opted for the slow (free) route to Paris rather than the €30 high-speed Thalys train. I don't regret it, though there was a curve ball thrown at me...

The train supposedly from Lille to Amiens was actually a train from Lille to Arras with a bus connection from Arras to Amiens. How did I figure this out? Was it the announcements plastered everywhere on the train in French telling me to take the bus after Arras? Or the spoken announcement in French telling me that this was the final stop for the train? No. I blissfully ignored all of those... Who needs a command of French in France? No, my mistake was made apparent when I looked up from my book to see that I was the only person remaining on the entire train. A moment of panic passed when I found a nice man who helped me to right my wrong, and I made the bus.

The bus, driven by an apparent mad man, made great time to Amiens but still arrived roughly 30 seconds after my planned train to Paris left the station. Woops. I waved it au revoir and waited for the next train to Paris, only about an hour later. Luckily Eurail allows me this kind of flexibility, because I may have been stuck in Amiens, otherwise.

(Sidenote: this pen is leaking on me...)

But taking the bus was actually a very good experience. It wound (sometimes hurtled) its way through the smallest villages I have seen yet in Europe and it was nice to see that rural towns here look much like rural towns in the US: most houses have a swing set in the back yard, etc., etc. It was a very intimate and relaxing way to experience France for the first time before the rush of Paris.

In the city itself I had no trouble navigating the underground (much more busy but much more thoughtfully planned, in my opinion, than Brussels') and finding my hostel (which seems nice, if a bit small).

It is exciting to start in Paris. I need to go to the station and fix/figure out all of my bookings, and I'll do my laundry tomorrow night, but the rest of the day is free for wandering.

More on that tomorrow!

Brussels 19th May 2013

It is a beautiful day here on my last day in Belgium, so I walked into the city center to eat and attempt to change my reservation for 1st June to Amsterdam, which I noticed last night I accidentally made from Toulouse rather than Lyon. Unfortunately the rather unfriendly lady at Centraal told me they cannot make reservations for trains outside of Belgium from here (how did I make the incorrect reservation in the first place? No one knows...). So I will have to do that in Paris. I am a bit worried I may not be able to get to Pau, but more on that if I have to deal with it...

I kept walking past the city center to the European Union Parliament. It was an impressive building but it is closed to individuals, so I could not go inside.

Menno suggested that I should write a bit about hosteling in general to encourage more people to travel affordably like I have been. I think it is a good suggestion, and I think hostels have two major positives that in particular students should consider when traveling: price and atmosphere.

Every hostel's price varies, of course, and in major tourist cities the price will be a bit higher. But I paid €17.00 in Vienna and €17.50 in Brussels per night, the equivalent of roughly $22.00. A night at the Super 8 in Aberdeen, by comparison, costs about $65.00 at least, and the quality is lower than some of the hostels I have been in.

How do hostels offer such a low price? It is simple: in hostels you rent a bed in a dormitory setting rather than an entire room to yourself. Most offer all-male, all-female, or mixed dormitory options, and the dorm life has not been a problem at all; it is a bit like school, just with a few more people in a room (my current room is eight people mixed, in Vienna it was six mixed, in Amsterdam 12 all-male). For the most part everyone I have met has been very kind and very interesting. That brings me to...

Atmosphere. Hostels, frankly, are fun. Students and people our age from all over the world are the primary clientele of hostels and it is exciting to meet people and share stories. The experience is different in every hostel, obviously (I seriously highly recommend the Hostel Ruthensteiner in Vienna... It was amazing.), but most have friendly staff and people which is huge, particularly when traveling alone.

So would I suggest hosteling? Yes! Take the chance to see the world while you're young. As we get older money will get tighter and our expectations will get higher; travel will never be easier than it is today, so do it!

Tomorrow I will spend the day on trains heading to Paris and then locating and settling into my hostel there.

Until then!